The Illusion of Change
by The Black Goldilocks
Summary: Okumura Rin has come to the point of which his confident mask was about to be shoved ruthlessly against the pavement. He hadn't felt it coming, no one did, and why? Or rather: why now? Friends, they had once called themselves, but only of the human Rin. Because, who would ever want to be acquainted with a demon? - One-shot, T for safety


The Illusion of Change

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There's not a single person who's ever claimed that forgetting the past is easy. Maybe for a while, yes, you can forget a lot of things easily with a few bottles of alcohol, a few pills of some illegal drug. But truly letting everything behind you, and start a new life? That was practically impossible, a thousand bridges too far.

But still there are so many broken individuals that latch desperately onto that single grain of hope, fooling themselves and believing that they could _change _anything_. _And of course they could, but never in the way they'd expected.

They start to wear grinning, porcelain masks, trying to hide the dark, sobbing creature inside of them. And, miraculously as it is, it works for a while. The ones around them don't notice the agony they are skillfully keeping to themselves.

Some can hold it off longer than others, but eventually, little cracks begin to form on their carefully placed facades, because the darkness inside only grows and grows while feeding itself with the insecurities, doubts and pain they had never managed to get rid of. It pushes against the mask and forces it to eventually fall, shattering it in thousand pieces on the cold hard ground.

Okumura Rin has come to the point of which his own confident mask was about to be shoved ruthlessly against the pavement. He hadn't felt it coming, no one did, and why? Or rather: why _now_?

Friends, they had once called themselves, but only of the human Rin. Because, who would ever want to be acquainted with a demon?

It had been just like that, a snap of a finger, and then they were gone. As friends, of course. He still saw them at cram school, on the school grounds, but always from a distance. The only communication he had were withering glares or frightened pleas to not come any closer.

At that point he had asked himself how he could have ever been so stupid to expect things to _change. _

If he was honest with himself, he knew that he had always been a demon. Hadn't they called him that a thousand times when he was young? He hadn't had a tail, or pointy ears, or sharp teeth, he hadn't _looked _like a demon. But he had behaved like one.

Throwing desks, shattering glass, breaking bones, those were things a preschooler shouldn't have been able to do. His violent nature, his short fuse, was something he had inherited from one of the most putrid beings that ever existed.

He had been in fights more than he cared to admit. Fights where he had absolutely pulverized his opponents, if they hadn't attacked him in group, though. He had thrown punches hard enough to give concussions, kicked people on the places where he could give them the most internal damage, and why? Because they had looked at him wrongly and called him a demon. Oh, he sometimes had better reasons, but did it matter truly? He had done the same either way.

After he had unsheathed his sword and thus accepted his demon side, nothing had truly changed. His outside features now finally resembled the ones on the inside; that was the only thing.

He had tried so hard to make friends this time, to be a better person, to notfight all the time. He had met Shiemi, Bon, Shima, Konekomaru, Izumo and Paku, and they were all so great. They were the little dots of light in his dark existence, after the sun which he had called his father had died. They had liked this new Rin and had called him, even though it was rather begrudgingly, their friend. And even though he hadn't acted differently towards them even after they had seen his true nature, they started to treat him as he deserved to be treated: like a monster.

Suicide was a thing he had often considered, especially after his own brother had revealed his true feelings about him. But he couldn't let Satan win. Shiro had said that if he would unsheathe the sword, that he would never be treated as a human again, that his life would never be the same. It was sad to admit that also this time he had been right. But he had been willing to pay the price to save his father.

He would've never imagined it to cost that much, though.

"What are you doing up here?"

Rin didn't look up towards the all too familiar voice; a voice he had never dared to hope would be addressed to him again. What would she want? Had she finally got the guts together to approach and chew out the dangerous, volatile monster about what had happened in the forest? About why he had lied, and kept it a secret? About how he should just make it easier for them all and die, please?

"I just asked you a question, Okumura."

The half-demon switched his gaze from the setting, red sun towards the purple-haired young woman who was glaring at him with her piercing, scarlet eyes. Her hands were resting on her thin hips and she looked down on him as if he was something sticky on the sole of her shoe. It didn't sting that much, she looked at everyone that way.

"I'm sitting here," Rin responded. He almost winced at his toneless voice, but he just couldn't seem to pick up the fragments of his mask.

"I-I can see that, but why are you doing that _here _of all places?" Kamiki's ever present scowl had smoothed out a little, a thing he had only had to fortune to see two times or so.

The raven haired teen shrugged and turned his gaze back towards the beautiful sundown. "Because I felt like it, I guess."

He didn't hear Izumo move, she didn't answer either, what he did feel was her hesitation. Before he could speculate as to why she was so at unease, ignoring the fact of what he was and that the concept should be foreign to her, she sat down next to him.

His eyes widened in genuine surprise, looking at the young woman's grimacing profile as she was facing the horizon. She sat only few centimeters from him, her arms crossed defiantly and legs dangling over the edge of the high roof. She looked as if she wanted to pretend she didn't care, but he could see the little emotions displayed on her face. And it weren't the emotions he'd expect.

"What's wrong?" _Why do you look so sad? Why aren't you afraid?_

Kamiki's grimace grew, not even glancing his way as she answered tightly: "Do you really have to ask me that, Okumura?"

Dread started to fill the half-demon's stomach. Any moment now, she could start her vicious rant that would leave him emotionally ruined for the next few weeks. He knew how skillfully sharp her tongue could be, and even if it had never been directed at him before, he had witnessed it.

And that was why it had come as a complete surprise to him when she mumbled softly; probably hoping he wouldn't catch it: "I didn't expect all of us to _change_."

It took him several moments with looking puzzled at her pale profile and light scowl before he dared to ask: "What do you mean?"

The corner of her lips twitched upwards a little, responding rather sourly: "The only thing that's actually changed is that we now know the truth. You haven't, not really anyway."

He looked back forward to the orange, pink, red, violet sky as he understood what she was referring to. He sighed profoundly. "It's not like it really matters anyway."

"Oh, don't fool yourself, Okumura." She turned her head towards him, her fierce gaze boring into the right side of his head. "I may be the only one, but I can see clearly you are dying inside. The others are just plain stupid to be afraid of _you _of all things."

He barked out a humorless laugh and switched his cobalt eyes to her blood red ones. "Stupid? You may not have noticed, but I'm the son of Satan. I'm dangerous."

Kamiki's frown deepened again: "_You _may not have noticed, but there are tons of people who are related to demons by blood. Better still, many of them are exorcists."

There were other people like him? All this time he had thought he was alone, and now he hears there are lots of them? Exorcist and all? "Really?"

"It's common knowledge," she spoke haughtily.

Rin's small rush of happiness quickly vanished after a few seconds, realizing: "But still, I'm the spawn of Satan. That's totally different. I'm a lot more powerful than the rest of them, I've got the blue flames, I'm… I'm a monster."

Her stony eyes completely softened; a thing he had never thought he would witness in his entire life. "Do you really believe that last part?"

He nodded, not only believing it but also _knowing _what he was. "Yes, yes I do, Kamiki."

They looked at each other for several moments, not knowing for what they were searching in each other's eyes. A trace of a lie, or a trace of deeply hidden contempt that was yet to surface?

"You don't seem like the monster-type to me, thought," she then said softly, trying to show with eyes that she meant what she said. She had read once that the eyes were the windows to the soul, and to her that was the truest thing she'd ever come across. "You're the happy-go-lucky slacker with ADHD, and I really can't see you as anything else."

Skeptically he raised his eyebrows, and he had to do his best to keep a sharp, humorless laugh inside. "Not even in the forest?" He had seen their expressions, better yet, they still haunted them in his dreams –nightmares. They were burned forever on his eyelids, making him face the ugly, devastating truth every time he closed his eyes.

She shrugged, uncurling her arms and leaning back on the palms of her hands. "You were consumed by your flames. That was your demon side, not you."

"I _am _my demon side. If I don't manage to control them, then I am going to be-..." he cut himself off before saying what his current life evolved about: constantly tip-toeing around on eggshells with the trembling fear of knowing that it could be at any moment that they decided it was for the better to get him _killed._ He dragged a hand through his raven hairs with a deep sigh. "I didn't know what I expected when I came here anyway. Prolong it, I guess."

Her eyes filled themselves with an almost never present confusion. "Prolong what?"

"My life," he stated dully. Sometimes he forgot that none of the esquires knew. They didn't know what he's been through, they didn't know what was hanging above his head, they didn't know what was actually going on. It wasn't as if they could do anything about it, but if he had told them right of the bat, would they have been there for him? The answer was a big, painful 'no'. Because right now they knew what he was, and they weren't exactly a big support, were they? Telling them the facts now would only result in a few more voters for the execution.

Izumo's eyes widened exceptionally. "I thought you wanted to kill Satan, and that's why you came here."

The teen smiled wistfully, thinking about the day of his father's funeral. The guilt that was coming down on him just as the rain was that day, and Mephisto, standing there in his extraordinary get-up and telling him what the future held for him. "That's my goal still, but it wasn't like I was offered many choices anyway."

"What do you mean with that?" Izumo asked fearfully. There was not a single person who'd ever accuse her of being stupid, as she was almost always the embodiment of intelligence itself, but she hadn't thought about this yet. She hadn't thought a single second about what Rin's life was like until this very moment. And now that she did, she wasn't even that sure if she wanted to know what he's been through. The Vatican hadn't known about him, if she had to believe August Angel's speech of that fateful night, but that didn't mean he'd lead an easy life before that.

The half-demon didn't respond right away, which unsettled the young tamer even more. With his gaze settled on eternity and a grim expression she'd never seen on his usually so joyful face, he began: "… After I saw… I'd killed… After my adoptive father had committed suicide to save me, Mephisto came to me. He offered me three choices: come with him and be executed by the Vatican, kill them all and flee, or commit suicide."

"_What?!" _The biggest of words couldn't even begin to describe what kind of fury she was feeling at that very moment. A scorching heat pulsed through her veins, and with every heart beat she felt her resent for the once so respectable principal of the whole True Cross Academy grow. "But you-?"

"Didn't do any of those things?" he interrupted flatly. "True, but I had to come with the alternative myself. I really wanted, still do, that bastard dead, so for me it was a win-win situation back then."

"We don't know anything about each other, do we?" she ground out through clenched teeth, her anger only slightly diminished. She looked at her classmate, noticing only now how old he looked, wise almost. It was an almost frightening sight to, after all this time, see the true colors of a person who's always acted like such a child. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself a little. "None of the esquires want to discuss it with each other, counting out the Kyoto trio of course. I don't think we have the right to judge."

He slowly shook his head. "No," he affirmed. "We really don't." It felt so surreal to him, to be sitting here on the roof of the old run-down dorm he and his twin brother shared, with Kamiki by his side to talk to. It was only a few hours ago that he had come up here to be alone with his thoughts, his dark thoughts of being alone and rejected. And she sat next to him, not cowering in fear or injuring his soul with her contempt.

"What are you going to do now?"

Her soft voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked in her challenging eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Are you going to wallow in self-pity the rest of your life, or are you going to pick things up and become your normal self again?"

Izumo's heart swelled as a genuine smile appeared on the broken teenager's lips. "I think I can try."

Smiling slightly in return, she hoped he wouldn't notice the sudden blush that began to adorn her once-pale cheeks. "Come on, let's go to class, they will be waiting for us."

They got up, not very aware of the enormous shift that had taken place in their once none-existent relationship. Silently they walked towards the old demonology classroom as there was nothing more to say right then. When they stood right before the red door, Izumo looked up at him, as if she had felt how much he was seeing up against facing everything again.

"You know, you can always make the best of it, even if things won't ever actually _change_."

A light smile tugged at the corner of his lips again as he looked at the person he'd least expect there to be for him. His electrifying blue eyes filled themselves with an iron strong determination.

"I will."

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**God, I was in such a sad mood when I started to write this One-shot! I hope you guys enjoyed it, though, even if it was rather dark. Feel free to leave a review, and I absolutely don't know yet, but maybe I will add another chapter if you guys really want me to. There are a lot of things that could happen between these two, so… we'll see **

**Have a nice day, night or whatever,**

**Goldilocks x**


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